A British community development worker has invented a ‘survival kit’ for bees, and the prototype has shown success at reviving wearied insects.
Bees have notoriously fast metabolisms and quickly run out of energy when out retrieving pollen. In the urban environment pollinating plants can be few and far between, making the task even more difficult.
To address the issue, Norwich local Dan Harris created a credit-card style pack containing three sachets of beekeepers’ formula sugar solution. The sugar hit can be a life-saver for an exhausted insect, and the handy pack can be kept in a wallet or pocket when out and about.
Harris told The Guardian he had worked on the prototype for over four years, hoping the packs could save bee lives while also provide an opportunity for city-dwellers to connect with nature on an intimate level.
“It struck me that everyone who walks around a city will have walked past an exhausted bee,” Harris said.
“I was living in a flat without a garden and the most likely place I would come across a bee was walking around the city and I didn’t have a teaspoon of sugar solution to hand.”
The success of the prototype packs has encouraged Harris to set up Bee Saviour Behaviour, a not-for-profit cooperative that will create the revival kits from recycled plastic cards. The organisation launched a crowd-funding campaign earlier this month, aiming to secure enough funding to mass-produce the packs.
Positive Action
- The best thing Australians can do to support native bees is to plant native flowering plants in their gardens and avoiding pesticides as much as possible when gardening.
- For more information on how to identify and revive tired bees, check out this ABC article.
- Support Australia’s native habitats by planting a native tree as part of National Tree Day 2019.
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Positive Environment News has been compiled using publicly available information. Planet Ark does not take responsibility for the accuracy of the original information and encourages readers to check the references before using this information for their own purposes.